Teen admits leak of nude pictures

A TEENAGER has admitted illegally uploading intimate pict u res of wome n in Dundee.

Alastair Ferguson, of Reres Road, shared the i mages to a storage application from a computer at Dundee and Angus College’s Kingsway campus on March 12.

The 19-year-old was not placed on the sex offenders register with a sheriff still to determine whether there was a “substantial sexual element” to Ferguson’s offence.

Dundee Sheriff Court heard that police received 16 calls from people not known to Ferguson about intimate photographs and videos being uploaded to the application named mega.nz with an online link attached.

Depute fiscal Jenna Grattan said: “Photographs had been viewed by people unknown to the complainers, causing them extreme distress and upset.

“The photos had been shared by the complainers with their partners and were not publicly available.”

The court heard that one of the files was entitled “Dundee” and contained images of 29 females. A specific email address associated with the mega.nz link was found to be one used by Ferguson. Police managed to trace this to a computer at the college which was confirmed by a member of staff. Officers executed a search warrant at Ferguson’s home.

He told police: “I looked but I didn’t do anything else with them.

“I saw it on Twitter and downloaded all the images to my phone but I didn’t do anything else with them.”

Ferguson pleaded guilty to causing the women fear and alarm by uploading images and creating an online link for them to be viewed.

Solictor Ross Bennett opted to reserve his mitigation until the preparation of a social work report.

Sentence was deferred on Ferguson until next month with Sheriff Derek Reekie saying he would determine in sentencing whether to place him on the sex offenders register.

How the Tele broke and ran the story of the leaked pictures, and was first with the news of Alastair Ferguson’s appearance in court.